Ireland: Discrimination in the rental housing market (Sept 2020)

• Discrimination in the rental housing market: a field experiment in Ireland

• By Egle Gusciute. Published online on 4 September 2020 in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

• https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1813017

• Abstract:

  • This paper presents the results of a first field experiment on ethnic discrimination in the rental housing market in Ireland, and considers ethnic discrimination against European and non-European migrants.

  • The experimental involved creating six fictitious applicants with different ethnic and gender names that applied for vacant rental apartments advertised online.

  • Results of the experiment show that Irish applicants are more likely to be invited to view an apartment than both Polish and Nigerian applicants. But Polish applicants are more likely to be invited to view an apartment than Nigerian applicants.

  • There is also discrimination based on gender - females have received more invitations to view apartments than male applicants.

• Keywords: Ireland, housing market, discrimination, rental housing market, rental market, migrants, anti-migrant discrimination.